i THE EMPEROR
Standing in the space that holds the silent lace of night
away from you
You think that you can hold the searing, moulten gold between
your fingers
But it slips through, tearing tendons as it goes,
exposing the white of a knuckle
flesh-and-metal forming letters in the mould
Cradling you gun, after choosing the ones you think should die-
Lying on the hill crawling over the windowsill into your
living-room
They stare out, glass-eyed aimless heads,
bodies torn by vultures
you are the man whose hands are rank with the smell of death
Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,
Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace
Ah, but it is the only way you know
Looking out to sea, a flattened plane of weeds which bear no living
You crush life in your fist as your heart is kissed by the lips
of death
Ghosts betray you, ghosts betray you, in the night they steal your eye
from its socket
and the ball hangs fallen on your cheek
Complaining tongues are stilled; a thousand mouths are filled
with rusting metal
Your face a shade of green; somehow you try to speak through all the
garbage in your mouth
But it won't come out, and you cannot frame the words
as your stepson
throws your fame into the flames and you are burned
Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,
Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace
Ah, but it is the only way you know
ii THE ROOM
Live by sword and you shall die so,
All your power shall come to nought,
every life you take is part of your own,
death, not power, is what you've bought
Cringing in your room as the outriders of doom step
on your threshold;
Begging for your life as the impartial knife sinks in your
screaming flesh
without malice, merely taking murder's toll,
you must pay the price of hate, and that price is
your soul
Live in peace or die forever in your war-room